Pedro

It's November 4, and the World Series still isn't over. This is not right. I'm not sure why this has happened--perhaps the World Baseball Classic nudged the beginning of the season by a few days--but it's not right. Baseball needs to be over before Halloween.

And yet, Pedro Martinez, that grand showman, takes the mound tonight for the Phillies against his Daddies, the New York Yankees. It's almost worth TiVoing. With so much at stake, and with the potential for such pressure on the Bombers tomorrow if they lose tonight, there is NO WAY they lose tonight. Seems like a reverse-reverse lock to me. The reverse lock would be the Yankees losing, because they are so highly favored. So in order for Pedro and the Phillies to lose, the reverse lock needs to be reversed. And that's where I think we are.

The only real hope for the evening is that Pedro goes six or seven and keeps the Phils in the game. Maybe they pull it out, maybe they don't. But Pedro needs to leave the game with face. He will put on face, regardless of the outcome. He always does. And when he steps before the microphones after the game, he will be more articulate and quotable and funny than maybe 95% of his fellow players.

So the stage is set (in that most stage-is-settable of cities) for high drama tonight. However, with the reverse-reverse lock in effect, it'll probably just be a Yankee blowout and we can get back to preparing for Thanksgiving and watching football as we should be doing at this time of year.

But with Pedro, there's always the "You Never Know" factor.

He's Baseball's Captain Show Biz.